Who owns the information you put online?

The inventory in a grocery store is eggs, milk, bread. But in a social media website, the inventory is information provided by members: names, emails, pictures. So if that website goes out of business, what happens to that information? XY magazine and it's website xy.com catered to gay teenagers. They went out of business in 2007, the founder has now filed for bankruptcy. He's listing among his assets the personal information of XY subscribers, including half a million online users. XY had told users they'd never share the information but creditors in the bankruptcy say they want that data. They want to be able to sell it.